Has my birth country become such a merciless society where most men don't acknowledge the existence of women, or if they do its only as an object to be bullied, groped, raped, beaten, tortured and killed?

Perhaps it was being put deep under by the anaesthesia, for I am told it really is a little like dying. Well the closest one comes to dying without actually... dying; when you are sedated enough for them to cut into you. Maybe it was that which dropped me deep into myself, enough to touch the stuff that really mattered. The debris hidden behind decades of conditioning shot to the top.

My writing straddles too many genres to be categorised. So I turned Indie. However, when my self-published, first novel made it to the Amazon bestseller list, I realised I had a niche: a group of readers around the world who liked what I wrote. They wanted to know what it meant to come of age in a complex environment like India.

The most interesting part of a publishing conference is normally the wrap-up session. By then, you have worked out that all the authors are in the same boat: i.e. hoping to be mainstream published, but meanwhile contemplating going Indie.

I thought I had moved on, until technology brought it all back in reverse focus: to my self. And, now that these pictures I take of my reflection have been officially recognised as an art form, it's made taking self-portraits even more weirdly appealing.

Many many years later, BA has come up with another one - a five minute clip which has forced me to see it in a more kindly light. In the tradition of the best (or worst as you may see it) reality TV programming tradition, the ad unabashedly tugs at the heart strings of immigrants like myself, tracing the journey home and how it feels to surprise your parents with a sudden visit.

"I put up on my blog that I had written a movie script titled LUCIA, and was looking for investors," remarks Pawan. "I gave the audience the option to put in little chunks of money in the project, the idea was to make a good movie which was purely an artist's work and was free of market pressures. I was able to raise 51lakhs (£ 55,584) in just 27 days."

The bottom line seems to be 80% of that much sought after self-fulfillment kind of happiness comes from the 20% of my time which I am able to spend writing. Tying in with that oft quoted/ misquoted 80-20 rule or, the law of the vital few, which states roughly 80% of the effects, comes from 20% of the causes.

Chris McVeigh-- he runs FourFiftyOne a digital publishing consultancy as well as seoforbooks--said, "SEO is a huge opportunity for Indie authors to become discoverable" adding "it is not a discoverability but a visibility problem for many authors."

Here is a community where these high affinity content generators feed off each other, building on each other's ideas and elements, taking up the plot lines where the others leave. A vibrant creative world, set around the show or game or movie of that world, which grows with each new story, generating new ideas for the original content producer or studio.

A young friend passed away in an accident and to my horror his Facebook profile turned into a virtual memorial of sorts, with people leaving condolences and fond reminiscences; and of course friends liking their comments too.

Today NHS managers want to sell off part of the Whittington site, cutting almost 570 jobs to leave the hospital with reduced maternity services, ward closures and fewer beds for the elderly. Why cut funding for something which works? At what cost is the government saving costs?

When Taavet Hinrikus, moved from Estonia to London, he was shocked at the bank rates he had to pay to send money back to his hometown. Then, a friend and fellow Estonian faced the same problem and talking about it, they came up with an idea to beat the system.

Sophiya Haque was the first Indian looking female face I had seen in a music video which set easy-to-get English words to the strains of Indian ragas and was broadcast on an honest-to-goodness mainstream music channel in India.

Rajinikanth is, quite simply, the biggest superstar, cinema-crazy India has ever seen. His stylized dialogues and screen mannerisms are legion, as well, his guy next door-cum-superhero image has found a hysterically appreciative following among millions of moviegoers.